


Bullet With Butterfly Wings

by Dime_Store_Riot



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2019-09-01 09:21:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16762360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dime_Store_Riot/pseuds/Dime_Store_Riot
Summary: It’s been only a few short months since Max Caulfield chose saving Chloe Price over Arcadia Bay. The two girls have been hiding out at the Caulfield house in Seattle, trying to navigate life and love after the storm. Chloe's struggles with survivor’s guilt and the fear that she’s not good enough for Max are soon cut short by a surprise visit from FBI Agent J.W. Dunne. Dunne’s shocking news about the Mark Jefferson investigation and an impossible photograph left mysteriously on the front porch draw the girls back to Arcadia Bay. There they discover the town's long buried secrets, The Dark Room's hidden secrets, and the truth behind the storm.





	1. Field of View

## PROLOGUE

“Chlooooeee! Maaaaax!”

Hearing her father’s voice, Chloe squeezed Max’s hand harder and quickened her pace up the steep pathway to the lighthouse. “Come on,” she said, excitedly.

“It’s starting to rain,” Max whined.

“I know,” Chloe said, turning her little face up briefly to catch the chilly raindrops. “It’s fine!”

Max’s heart hammered in her small chest. Chloe’s family was completely different from hers but she couldn’t imagine ever running away when her father called her. The thought of disobeying, the idea of possibly disappointing, let alone actually getting in trouble was nearly crippling to her. She looked nervously over her shoulder and stumbled on a half-buried wooden step, breaking their handhold and nearly crashing into Chloe.

Her friend took it in stride. Chloe urged her to watch out, laughed, and then kept going.

“Chlooooeee! Maaaaax!”

Max hesitated. She looked behind her and saw William near the bottom of the hill, a hazy figure being swallowed by the soft approach of night and the deeper rushing darkness from the oncoming storm.

Max took a ragged breath and looked up the hill as Chloe disappeared around the trail’s bend. She couldn’t have articulated it then, partially because she didn’t fully understand it, wouldn’t fully under it until much later after she had moved away — it wasn’t just the desire to _not_ disappoint her friend that made her go along with whatever Chloe wanted to do; it was because there was simply something special about her: a kind of unspoken sense that if you followed her, she would lead you somewhere you had never been before.

“Chlooooeee! Maaaaax!”

Max ran up the hill as the storm swept William’s voice away. Once clear of the wood, the rain fell harder. She spotted Chloe standing below the lighthouse, along the cliff’s edge and hurried to join her.

“Look, Max.”

Cautiously, she took Chloe’s hand. The two of them were now on the very edge of the storm. The wind wasn’t strong enough to crest the hill, but the sound of the forceful gusts whipping below the outcrop carried upward, even over the distant peels of thunder. Max opened her eyes wide and looking into the wind and the rain. Dark clouds rolled landward off the steel-white froth of the choppy sea. Far below, near Arcadia Bay, she could see a ship chugging bravely ahead of the storm, struggling toward the docks. Strange, glowing halos of light enveloped the mast-ends, the antennas, and the lightning rods.

“What is _that_?”

“St. Elmo’s Fire,” Chloe said. “Sailor’s considered it good luck. A blessing.”

The sky flashed so brightly it blinded them both. A jagged bolt of lightning streaked across the ocean and struck the top of the lighthouse with a loud discharge. For a moment, everything seemed to stop, then a scintillating ball of lightning shot down from the lighthouse and raced between them, vanishing over the ocean with a loud pop that seemed to unleash the storm’s full fury.

Max squealed in fear. Chloe squeezed her hand tighter. Something passed then between them. It was one of those things you could never explain to anyone else, an experience—a feeling—you couldn’t even articulate to someone who had not been there with you. It was a sense that something wondrous had happened and happened only for them.

The two girls looked at each other, looked deep into one another's eyes. They smiled warmly with the timeless sense that only love can bring, but then, just as suddenly as the ball lightning had appeared and vanished, they were back to being two little girls standing on the edge of a cliff in a storm.

“ _Daddy!_ ”

## FIELD OF VIEW

Chloe woke to the sound of Max’s fingers speeding along her laptop’s keyboard. She opened her eyes slowly and found herself staring at the poster above Max’s bed. It was a print of one of Richard Avendon’s most famous shots, the mod portrait that launched Twiggy’s career. The 17-year old model wore a fuzzy green jacket with purple and pink flowers. Her short brownish-blond hair was swept back from her face. A light purple daisy was painted on her left eye and she looked straight at the camera with an expression that seemed one part boldness, one part paralyzing fear.  


_Ugh. Looks like Victoria Chase._ Chloe grunted and rolled away from the wall, pulling the covers up over her head until only her face peeked out and she could look around in sneaky, sleepy wonder.  


Max’s room was roughly the same size as Chloe’s room back in Arcadia Bay, only without any space lost to roof-shape. The difference was all in the organization and the decoration.  


Max’s room was very neat; literally, the only mess on the floor was Chloe’s—where she had tossed her clothes from the night before—and that was only because Max hadn’t picked up yet.  


Chloe had decorated her room with things that spoke to her, layer upon layer of experience and memory. Max, on the other hand, decorated her room with precision and an artist’s eye. The posters were all even and at the proper spot to catch the eye. Even the Polaroids taped to the wall were lined up with every other Polaroid, not to mention organized in thematic clusters. The desk on the north side of the room was perfectly lined up with the window and completely opposite of the door on the south. The TV was directly opposite the bed, evenly positioned between the twin closet doors, while the bed itself was pressed against the wall and position between the two large windows, so you woke flanked by soft morning sunlight.  


Max sat on the floor with her back was against the bed, the laptop in her lap, and her legs stretched out on a large area rug that said: Mind The Gap. She hadn’t changed out of her Hawt Dog Man pjs and her hair was messy with a single clump sweeping upward in a twisty, gravity-defying curve.  


Chloe watched her.  


She liked the way Max stared so intently at the screen, like there was some riddle there to be solved. She’d wiggle her toes, then suddenly type with a mad furry. Eventually she’d make a silly mistake she’d fix by stabbing the backspace button like she was sending a telegraph. Then she’d wrinkle her mouth, raise her head and stare off into space before another burst of mad typing.  


Chloe smiled and started to reach out to touch the back of Max’s head. She stopped as soon her hand slid clear of the covers and she became hyperaware of a single wisp brushing across the tip of her middle and forefingers.  


Fear gripped her.  


She was desperately afraid then that she’d ruin everything with her touch. That Max would bat her hand away, give her a _WTF?_ look. Or even worse, Max would suddenly vanish and take everything with her, that none of this was real, and Chloe was just back in Arcadia Bay, back in her own room, lost and lonely, miserable and angry and depressed and way too fucking high to enjoy even being way too fucking high.  


Or worst still…that she was dead and like Tantalus this was her doom for eternity, her beloved Max right there in front of her but every time she’d reach out to touch…  


_Pull it the fuck together, Price_ , she told herself. She started to say something snarky to Max to stem her own rising emotions and sense of mushiness—  


“You’re awake,” Max said.  


“Yeah.”  


Max leaned her head back into Chloe’s hand and smiled. Max felt warm and that warmth spread through Chloe’s hand and down her arm and into her body. The warmth brought with it happiness and, perhaps more importantly, a sense of safety.  


_This is real. Holy fuckballs, this is all real…_  


Chloe’s heart and lungs swelled. She felt tears start to well in her eyes as if she were suddenly so very full, so completely full that something had to come out. She smiled back and then, thankful, as the first tears streaked down her face, Max looked back down at her laptop screen.  


“Kate says hi,” Max said closing a chat window and clicking over to a different tab where she began scanning over what looked like a homework assignment.  


Chloe slyly wiped the tears away. “Tell her hi back,” she said, “but, dude, what are you doing?”  


“Finishing my assignment,” Max said.  


“Maaaax…”  


_Assignments_ …Blackwell Academy itself had come through the storm mostly intact. The old stone buildings easily weathered the brunt of nature’s fury. The problem was the infrastructure. With no electricity, no water, no internet, and no ETA on when or even if any of those would be up again, the trustees had quickly worked out a number of accommodations, one of which was to allow seniors in good academic standing to complete a few online assignments and receive their diploma as if nothing has ever happened.  


“ _Maaax!_ ” Chloe groaned, grabbed Max’s pillow from the other side of the bed and bopped her in the head.  


“Hey! What? Ooph!”  


“Why are you doing that _now_?” Chloe whined and chambered the pillow for another swing.  


Max hit send, quickly closed the laptop, and slid it under the bed in time to take another blow to the face.  


“I’m done now! All done! Now we can do whatever—” Chloe faked a swing to her face. Max grabbed futilely at her Doctor Who pillow case, but Chloe swiped low at the last minute, hitting her in the legs. “—until Bay City.”  


Chloe’s chest clenched at the words Bay City, meaning Bay City College. After they had driven up from Arcadia Bay in the days following the storm, Max’s parents had given them only a week without any structure whatsoever before Max’s dad sat Chloe down for a very intimidating talk about life direction and being an adult. In a way, the entire thing reminded her very much of something David would have said back when he first started sticking around and trying to parent. It had been hard to keep her mouth shut, but Chloe managed to even as he told her that he had already worked out two options for her.  


Option one was a local high school for “troubled youth”—Chloe’s words not his—that would take her as non-traditional student at the start of the semester. With her transfer credits, she wouldn’t have to be there long before she could graduate.  


Option two was to take the high school equivalency test which would basically give her a diploma. Mr. Caulfield had also spoken to a friend of his in the admissions department of Bay City College. As long as Chloe passed the equivalency, they’d take into account the circumstances of her father’s passing and the trauma of what happened in Arcadia Bay, and allow her to start in the Fall semester like any other student.  


When she relayed all this to Max, before Chloe could even offer her own feelings on the matter, Max applied, was accepted almost immediately, and started planning out their freshman year together.  


_Ugh._ Chloe swung at Max’s face again to cover her own expression. “I still need to pass the stupid equivalency—”  


Laughing, Max stumbled back, but this time managed to grab the pillow case and wrenched it from Chloe’s grasp. “You will,” she said, swinging it over her head for a vicious strike of her own. “You’re one of the smartest people I know. You just don’t care.”  


Chloe rolled out of the way. Max’s pillow missed and struck the bed. Chloe launched her counterstrike. The blow landed much harder than she intended, knocking Max down. “Shit,” she said, wincing and starting to rise. “I’m sorry—”  


Max’s ruse worked.  


“Mutiny!” She rammed her pillow into Chloe’s face and pushed her down flat. “Mutiny”  


“Hey!”  


Laughing, Max scrambled onto Chloe’s chest, using her legs to pin her under the blanket.  


“Can’t breathe!” Chloe thrashed melodramatically underneath Max.  


Max shook her fist in the air. “Mutiny I say! Mutiny!”  


Chloe continued her mock panic for a bit before finally relenting, saying, “Okay! Okay! You win! I give, Caulfield! I give!”  


Max barely raised the pillow and peeked over the top. Chloe took a ridiculously deep-breath, then, laughing, tried to buck Max off.  


Max barely avoiding falling. She grabbed the headboard at the last minute, then, not to be outdone, she pressed the pillow down with exaggerated force and renewed her calls for an uprising. Chloe made loud choking noises and waved her arms in the air as if swimming away from death.  


“It’s the end for you Captain Bluebeard!”  


“Aargh-gurgle-gahhhh…” Chloe shot both arms straight into the air, shook them violently, and then let them fall limp.  


Laughing Max tossed the pillow aside and slid down beside the comically still Chloe. “Finally! Love live Captain Max,” she said in an absolutely terrible but cute pirate accent. “Maxi-mus! Maxi-mus! Maxi-mus!”  


Chloe opened one eye. “You’re mixing tropes, Caulfield. No pirates and gladitors.”  


“I can mix all the tropes I want, _Price_. Pirates. Gladiators. Ninjas. Princesses. Talking animals.” Max poked her in the ribs. “You can’t do anything about it because you’re dead.”  


And like that, suddenly, the game was not funny. Chloe swiveled her head to look at the ceiling, while Max immediately laid hers against the taller girl’s bony shoulder.  


“If I didn’t work ahead,” Max said softly, returning to the previous conversation, “we probably wouldn’t have been able to go to the Morlocks show. Plus, I’m done now. Like totally done. We can do whatever we want until school.”  


“You mean until your dad makes us get jobs.”  


“Chloe—”  


“Pay rent.”  


Max remained silent.  


“Spin the chore wheel.”  


“Really?”  


Chloe sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m just being—I don’t know. I don’t know why I do that. I’m always pushing at things. Especially if I’m emotional and upset…”  


“Or mad.”  


“Or mad. Defintely when mad. I’m sorry.”  


Max swept her hand along Chloe’s neck to cradle the side of her face. “It’s okay,” she said, stretching to press her lips against Chloe’s cheek.  


“The Morlocks were so awesome,” Chloe gushed. “Loud, driving, B-movie pop-punk.”  


“Kinda like The Cramps but more sci-fi and less horror. Thought you’d like them.”  


“I did—a lot.”  


“You’re most welcome.”  


“There is something though…”  


"What?”  


_High on the list of conversations, I didn’t think I’d ever have…_ Chloe’s mind raced through the events of the night before. When Max told her about the show, she had been incredibly excited, then more than a little nervous learning they were going to meet some of Max’s Seattle friends. On the way to Neon Taco, Chloe had mentally prepared in case she needed to unleash some furious backtalk and belittling. Luckily Max’s Seattle friends had all proved to be nice, because when Max introduced Chloe as her girlfriend, Chloe was completely and utterly floored…and stayed that way until much later when everyone was dancing upstairs at the Crocodile Club.  


“About last night though…” Chloe paused searching for the words. “Not the show I mean. Uh, when we got back here. You know, you and I, we’d never really …”  


Max scooted up even with Chloe. She propped herself up on an elbow and awkwardly grabbed the other girl’s face with both hands. “Chloe,” she said, “I’m okay.”  


“You sure?” Her eyes searched Max’s for a sign of lies or distress. “I know after the Dark Room, you were—”  


“I’m positively okay.”  


“Good. I just don’t want—I mean, I know you…you broke the laws of time and space for me and you sacrificed the Bay for me and I just don’t…I mean, last night was…so incredible but I don’t want it to mess anything up because I’m more than good enough at that all on my own—”  


“Chloeee!” Max kissed her hard on the lips to shut her up. Chloe sighed into her mouth and kissed her back harder, hard enough for their teeth to clack together.  


They both laughed but barely broke the kiss. “I fucking love you, Super Max,” Chloe said, pressed into Max and pulling her closer. “And I want you—”  


Someone knocked on the bedroom door.  


They both froze.  


Another knock, then Vanessa Caulfield’s shrill voice called through the door, “Max? Chloe?”  


Max put her hand over Chloe’s mouth. “Yeah, mom?”  


“Time to get up girls,” Mrs. Caulfield said. “Breakfast in twenty minutes.”  


“Be down in a sec.”  


Soon as Max removed her hand, Chloe let out a long, slow breath. “Holy shit,” she said, “I think I had a stroke.”  


“You’re so dramatic,” Max said, shaking her head and climbing over Chloe.  


“Do you think they know?” Chloe asked grabbing her slender wrist. “You think that’s why your mother was up here?”  


“Know what?”  


“Know what? Really, Max? About us that we’re—”  


“Yes, they know,” Max said. “I already told them.”  


Chloe was so shocked she released her grip. “Wait? What? You told them? For reals?” She sat up in bed. “When? What did you say? What did they say?”  


“Nothing really,” Max said. “Honestly, I think they knew already.”  


“Holy shit, Max! They know and they didn’t freak? They know and they haven’t kicked me out! Though that explains why I got the ‘two options’ speech. Shit, it’s a wonder I didn’t hear the what-are-you-intentions-toward-my-daughter speech. Or is that entirely reserved for guys? Because I don’t know how I feel about that. I mean, not that I want to hear it because it’s hella dumb, but if it is reserved for guys, that’s a little sexist—”  


Max shook her head and continued walking to her bedroom door. “My dad loves you Chloe. That’s just how he shows it.”  


Chloe started to say something snarky, but held her tongue—no one takes parental critiques well. Instead, she kicked the covers aside and followed quickly after Max, demanding, “What did they say though? Was it weird? I bet it was _hella_ weird. Like hella fucking weird.”  


Max paused with one hand on the doorknob, the other on Chloe’s chest. “Nothing like what they’ll say if you go downstairs like that,” she said, pushing her girlfriend back into the room.  


It was then Chloe realized she wasn’t wearing any pajama bottoms and only a thin tank-top.  


“Damnit, Caulfield!” Chloe rushed over to where she thought her clean pants were but found only the dirty pair she had spilled coffee on two days ago. Furiously, she began tossing clothes around the room.  


“See,” Max said, slipping out the door, “this is why you pick up after yourself.”  


Chloe threw her dirty jeans across the room but Max was already gone.  


Once alone, she sat down on the bed, and ran her fingers through her hair. _They know_ , she thought. _Max told them already. And last night she introduced me to her friends as her girlfriend. Life is strange. Hella strange._  


Chloe smiled to herself, then her brain answered her joy with negative thoughts: _Don’t know if I can handle more parental talks like that...even if it is how Ryan shows affection._  


It had only been two months but Chloe was already been feeling the need to get out of there. Not because the Caulfields were bad people. They weren’t. They were just…distant. A little cold. Almost formal. And Max’s mom was so fucking weird about money. She was the kind of person that would buy you something you wanted because she genuinely wanted you to have it, but at the same time, she’d never let you forget how much it cost.  


Chloe shook her head and looked around the room for a distraction. She saw that the TV and the DVD player were still both on and walked over to shut them off. She stared at the pause menu screen for _Cutthroat Island_. The first _Pirates of the Caribbean_ movie had given her and Max the pirate bug. But _Cutthroat Island_ had turned it into a full on sickness. Good pirate movies were a rarity, which made good pirate movies with kickass female leads fucking priceless.  


Chloe turned the power off.  


Above the TV was the one poster she really liked. It was another photography print, this time from a photographer named Derek Ridgers. In the print, a couple embraces at a party in London. The girl, a tattoo on her arm and a cigarette in her hand, stares dully ahead, slack-jawed and wide-eyed.  


Ridgers, Max had explained lovingly during her Seattle bedroom tour, spent the early 80's haunting the London punk scene, taking pictures in the clubs of all the outlandish outfits, the wild makeup, and the big bright mohawks. But his best work were his intimate black and white photographs of the rebellious, tattooed, working class teens just hanging out in living rooms and parties and on the street.  


Chloe thought it was a cool picture and she wanted to know about the couple. She wanted to talk to the girl. She felt like she understood her head-space. And, even more than that, seeing that Max had punk photography up on her wall made it feel like they hadn’t really been so distant during those absentee years.  


_We’re not staying here much longer…but should I go to college? I don’t even know what I want to do with my life. But we’ll need money. Fuck! Beardy McFacialhair is right, I do need a plan…_  


Chloe shook her head, realizing what she was doing. She took a deep breath to bring her thoughts back to now, and then exhaled loudly. She swung her arms up over head to stretch, took another breath in, held it and…released it while dropping her arms to her side.  


_It’s okay to be happy, Chloe. It’s okay to be fucking happy. Because this is—_  


“Amazing,” she said aloud, looking around the room. “Fucking amazing.” She spotted Max’s CD player, rushed over and hit play. She ran back over to the bed and jumped on it as some hippy jam band started singing. She pulled her sleep shirt off and tossed it across the room.  


She danced and bounced on the bed for most of the song, then laughing, she leapt off, snatched the Morlocks shirt from the back of Max’s chair and spun around as she put it on, chanting, "It’s okay to be happy. It's okay to be happy."

  


Downstairs, Vanessa Caulfield stood at the stove finishing the last batch of pancakes. Max sat and ate quietly at the kitchen table.  


Chloe composed herself before walking to the kitchen. _This is a serious house_ , she told herself. “Mrs. Caulfield,” she said, entering like the demure extra on some period drama.  


“Chloe.” Max’s mother nodded.  


Max looked up at her. Over her orange juice, she mouthed, _Stop it._  


Chloe smirked and continued her perfect-posture walk until she reached Max. Then, after a quick glance to confirm Vanessa was still focused elsewhere, she grabbed the back of Max’s chair and leaned in close, her mouth against her ear. “So,” she whispered, “if they know, does that mean we can make out on the living room couch…? Have sex on the dining room table…?”  


“You’re stupid,” Max said, a little too loudly.  


“ _Maxine_ ,” Vanessa said, shocked.  


Chloe straightened quickly and continued around to her chair as if she had done nothing at all.  


Max’s mother crossed quickly to the table with another plate of pancakes. “We don’t call people stupid, young lady.”  


Chloe took the plate from Vanessa. Before Max could defend herself, she said, “See how she treats me, Mrs. Caulfield.?”  


“You know better, Maxine.”  


“Yes, mother,” Max said.  


Vanessa nodded approvingly and returned to the stove. Max poked Chloe hard in the arm. “You suck,” she said softly.  


Chloe playfully stuck her tongue out at Max, then took a big bite of pancakes. She immediately made a face.  


Max checked on her mother’s distraction again, then leaned close to Chloe who was chewing very slowly. “You suck and these pancakes suck.”  


Chloe swallowed. “What is this? Is this some of that ancient-grain-flax-seed-kale bullshit?” She stuck her tongue out, shook her head in disgusted, and looked around—the trash was on the other side of the kitchen.  


But that wasn’t going to stop her. Slickly, Chloe leaned back as if she stretching, then deftly opened the window behind her. Careful not to scrap knife against plate, she cut her pancakes in half, stabbed them with her fork, and tossed them out the window.  


When she looked back, Max had replaced Chloe’s missing pancake halves with what had remained of her own.  


Both girls looked at each other and laughed and laughed…

*******

The next day, Vanessa Caulfield drove Chloe to the test location. Chloe sat in the backseat of the SUV with her head pressed against the glass. Max sat beside her with her hand resting gently on her leg.  
This should have been comforting but wasn’t.  


Chloe was annoyed. Annoyed that she was being driven by Max’s mom like a 12-year-old going to her first school dance. She could have driven herself or Max could have driven her. It felt like no trusted her.  


A part of her knew rationally, that wasn’t true. She knew the sense of a simmering frustration, the rising feeling of needing to lash out at something, were all symptoms of how poorly she dealt with her own nervousness, how awkward she felt actually having someone there for her after having been alone and afraid for so long —  


“We’re here,” Vanessa said.  


“What?”  


Mrs. Caulfield pointed out the window.  


“I know you’ll kill it,” Max said.  


Chloe sighed, gripped the handle tightly, took a breath she hopped no one noticed, and opened the door. “Thanks.”  


Once out on the sidewalk, Vanessa reminded her of what time they’d pick her up.  


Chloe nodded, leaned in to kiss Max on the cheek, and then slammed the SUV shut. She waved as they drove away. When they were through the next light, she immediately checked the time on her phone.  


_Almost 25 minutes until the test—Jesus!_  


Chloe took her cigarettes out of her coat pocket and double-checked the coast was Caulfield-free—Max had been giving her major shit about her smoking. With a sense of deep relief, she started to light one, then spotted the large NO SMOKING sign. _You’ve got to be fucking kidding me._  


“Fascists!” Chloe flipped the world off as she walked around the building with the cigarette dangling in her mouth, searching for a safe place to smoke.  


She made it almost completely around before she found an out-of-the way spot by some dumpsters overflowing with cardboard boxes.  


As she was in no mood for anyone else to comment on her smoking, Chloe walked all the way into the alcove and stood between the back two dumpsters before she let her cigarette. She took a deep drag and for the first time that day, almost felt relaxed.  


The relaxation was brief as her thoughts returned to the Caulfields. She totally appreciated everything Max’s dad had done. And she knew he was right, even not knowing what she wanted to do with her life, completing high school in some fashion would make everything a little bit easier for her.  


But she didn’t appreciate his manner. He was so stiff and old fashioned and his tone tended to sound like he was pontificating, it all just pushed her buttons and threatened to set her off.  


Chloe blew a smoke ring. It occurred to her then that if Max’s family had stayed in Arcadia Bay, he and David probably would have gotten along great.  


She laughed to herself imagining that. She flicked the ash from her cigarette and rolled it around in her fingers, staring at the cherry smoldering. _Max…_  


Max was super gung-ho about them going to college together. Her plans and ideas had dominated yesterday afternoon. Yes, the idea of them living together, being in classes together, going to parties together, having a normal fucking life together as friends and as a couple sounded unbelievably awesome.  


But the truth was that Chloe wasn’t sure she wanted to go to college—at all. And more than that, a part of her hated the idea of Max going to some local community shithole simply to be with her, when she could easily go to a “real” school.  


“I don’t want to fuck up your life, Max,” she said aloud as she slid down the brick wall. She blew a big cloud of smoke and watched it fade.  


“Fuuuuck!” Listless, Chloe rolled her head to the side. The paint on that dumpster was faded and chipped. Rust had thinned other spots. She tilted her head staring at the pattern of wear, her eyes squinted, and, all on its own, her mind began visualizing the vague suggestion of shape into something more concrete.  


Chloe tapped the ash off her cigarette, parked it back in the corner of her mouth, took her marker out of her jacket pocket and began to draw using the weathered spots as the skeleton to build her art.  


She drew. Stared. Considered. Drew. Squinted. Ashed. And drew.  


When she was finished, Chloe stood and brushed herself off. She burned herself grabbing the cigarette stub out of her mouth. She flicked it angrily into a puddle. Then sucking on her singed finger, she finally stood back to admire her artwork.  


She had drawn a strange surrealist mélange of shape and shadow, of landscape and animal. A doe, a raven, and a kaleidoscope of butterflies surrounded a tower that fell away into a yawning pit. “Serious mood swings today Chloe.”  


She checked the time—two minutes until the test started. She cursed and kicked the dumpster on her way out of the alley.

  


Chloe finished the test early. With surprising confidence, she turned it in, left the class, and wandered around the neighborhood, trying to focus on what she wanted to do and where she wanted to go and how she’d present it to Max. The problem was she’d settle on something, then come the next block, she’d change her mind. Or, most confusing of all, she’d decide on something, only to figure that Max would probably hate it. This in turn triggered what was becoming the reoccurring fear that she wasn’t good enough for Max.  


A part of her considered that she was undoubtedly overthinking the entire thing, but she’d never had to consider another person’s feelings in a relationship before—certainly not a romantic one—so she had no real clue whether her concerns were remotely valid. The little relationship experience she did have, wasn’t really relationship experience at all.  


Except for a couple of completely physical relationships, her “boyfriends” had pretty much all been boys with whom she had already been friends. The only thing that really changed when they started “dating” was how they referred to each other and the occasional awkward grope-fest before everyone went home a little frustrated.  


Her girlfriend experience was even worse. Though they had never defined their relationship, there was Rachel Amber— _Good thing I’m not wealthy or I’d spend decades in therapy dissecting that mountain of baggage._ Then there was Max…  


Oh, one really weird physical encounter in the Two Whales bathroom with Stephanie Kowalski, the girl who had stolen her Yoo-Hoo back in 5th grade. Chloe laughed remembering how unexpected that whole thing had been and how when Stephanie Kowalski had come she had made this noise that sounded a little like she actually said yoo-hoo and how Chloe couldn’t help but burst out laughing at the top of her lungs.  


“Yoo-Hoo!” Chloe yelled now, laughing at the memory, completely headless of everyone who stared at her.  


Finally, with her window of fuckery winnowed down to under ten minutes, Chloe put it all out of her mind and double-timed it back to her pick-up spot. When she arrived, she was flush from the chill and only had to wait for a minute or two before Max and her mother pulled up to the curb.  


Chloe boasted as she climbed inside, “Totally destroyed that test, all bow—” Max’s face changed everything. “What’s the matter?”  


Max licked her lips nervously. “Chloe—”  


“Agent Dunne called while you were at the test,” Vanessa Caulfield said matter-of-factly as she pulled into traffic.  


“Shit.” The name froze Chloe’s blood. Agent J.W. Dunne was the Special Agent in charge of the Mark Jefferson investigation. He had been the first law enforcement officer they had spoken to in detail about Nathan Prescott, Rachel Amber, Mark Jefferson, and the Dark Room.  


Chloe found her resolve with a breath. She put her arm around Max and crossed her legs toward the smaller girl protectively. “What’s going on?”  


“Didn’t say,” Max said, leaning her head against Chloe’s shoulder  


“But he’s in town, says he needs to talk to us—”  


“ _Me and you_ ,” Max said, interrupting her mother.  


“He’ll be over just before dinner,” Max’s mother added before the SUV fell into total silence.

*******

The girls were sitting on the couch watching a science program with Max’s dad when Special Agent J.W. Dunne finally knocked on the door.  


“Quantum entanglement,” physicist Yīshēng Hu explained from the television, “is like love on the subatomic scale. Think of it as two particles that are together, even when they’re apart. Together, even when they’re apart.”  


Vanessa entered from the kitchen, the smell of casserole wafting behind her, and walked to answer the door.  


Ryan shut the TV off, patted Max on the shoulder, and gave Chloe a keep-a-stiff-upper-lip look. Chloe nodded but immediately looked away, watching Dunne enter the room, hoping to get some kind of read on what news he brought with him.  


The FBI agent had kind eyes and a handsome face. His dark hair, unfortunately had thinned in a very unattractive way. Despite being tall and looking fit, he was clearly at that point where the middle-age-spread could only be held off with an amount of exercise his job simply did not afford.  


Dunne gave nothing away as he nodded at everyone, said hello, and waited patiently for Mrs. Caulfield to have a seat. After Vanessa awkwardly squeezed in between Max and her father, the agent unbuttoned his sport coat and sat down on the edge of the recliner. “So…”  


Chloe seized the pause immediately, demanding to know if, “That fucker Jefferson isn’t getting off, is he?”  


“No,” Dunne said, his face finally betraying concern or perhaps simply buckling under the rising awkwardness and tension. “I don’t know how much you’ve followed the news, but we’ve tied Jefferson to a great many cases outside of Arcadia Bay.” Max’s mother made a sound in the back of her throat. She grabbed her husband’s hand and squeezed it visibly.  


Chloe rolled her eyes and felt Max tense beside her.  


Dunne continued, “Jefferson’s been doing this for a long time.”  


Chloe shrugged and pointed at the agent. “So why the face?”  


Again, Vanessa was taken aback. “Chloe—”  


Chloe ignored her and kept her gaze fixed on Dunne. “Sorry, man,” she said, “but right now you look like someone peed in your cereal. And I’m guessing you didn’t make a special stop to tell us that Jefferson is a bigger murdering piece of shit than we thought.”  


Vanessa Caulfield spoke up quickly. “Chloe’s just worried.”  


Ryan Caulfield quietly his wife. “Why don’t we let Agent Dunne finish before talking?”  


Dunne spoke before anyone could argue. “Mark Jefferson is most definitely not getting off. However, what that means is about to change.”  


Max looked at Chloe, then at her father. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Either he’s going to jail or he’s not.”  


“I think I do,” Ryan said. “But go ahead.”  


Dunne nodded. “Jefferson now has a very expensive lawyer. Not just a very expensive lawyer, but a very good and very expensive lawyer—”  


“You said—”  


Dunne held up his index finger as a sign to hold off on questions. “Now, he’s suddenly cooperating. He’s very forthcoming…about everything. He’s ready to confess—to everything, not just the cases in Arcadia Bay but cases all over the country. A few we didn’t even connect him to. He’s now willing to answer a lot of questions and put a lot of family’s minds at ease.”  


Max’s dad nodded. “In exchange for a deal.”  


Dunne sighed. “Yes, for a deal.” He prepared himself for an assault, but Chloe and Max were too shocked to interject.  


“Now,” he continued, “nothing has been accepted yet, but I wanted you to hear it from me first. The US Attorney is undoubtedly going to take it.”  


Chloe tilted her head and scooted forward on the couch. “What kind of deal does this sonofabitch get?”  


“He’s going to spend the rest of his life in a psychiatric hospital, right?” Max said, grabbing a hold of Chloe’s arm.  


Dunne searched their faces for a moment before nodding. “Yes.”  


Chloe shook her arm free and bolted to her feet. “Motherfucker!” She started to kick the coffee table with a big, black boot, realized she’d shatter the glass and instead stomped her foot as she turned, almost violently, to face away from everyone and stare at the wall.  


Dunne sat up very straight. “I can assure you,” he said very forcefully, “it’s not as cushy as it sounds or most people think. Like a psychiatric ward in a regular hospital, this is not a place you want to be.”  


Chloe slapped both hands on her head and resisted the urge to turn because she knew if she did, the faces would cause her to lash out even more. “Maybe,” she said. “But it’s not federal-get-the-shit-beat-out-of-you-every-day-for-what-you-did-to-young-girls-prison.”  


Something dawned on Max. “How did Jefferson get the money—”  


“Hold on,” Dunne said, waving his hand. “There’s more.”  


“More? More?” Now Chloe did spin around, clenching her fists and staring angrily at the fed. Max simmediately stood and intercepted her.  


“It’s Nathan Prescott,” Dunne said. “Jefferson is talking all the heat. All of it. He’s denying the Prescott boy had anything to do with…well, anything. He’s painting a far different picture in fact than what you both reported. According to his most recent statement, Prescott was a troubled boy he manipulated, milking him for cash to set-up his Dark Room, and that he had nothing to do with anything that took place there.”  


“You’re fucking kidding me?”  


Max kept herself between Chloe and Dunne, but turned to face the agent angrily herself. “Nathan Prescott killed Rachel Amber.”  


“Look, I believe you.” Dunne opened his eyes wide and nodded. “But Jefferson is claiming differently. In fact, he’s stating that he killed Nathan only after Nathan figured out what he was doing. That any statement Nathan made to anyone about being responsible for Rachel Amber was only because he had introduced them.”  


Chloe spoke over Max’s head. “So what? Nathan’s a fucking hero?”  


Max looked at her over her shoulder. “Guess we know who’s paying for his lawyer.”  


Mrs. Caulfield scooted to the edge of her seat and turned her body toward the agent. “What does that mean for the Max and Chloe?”  


“Honestly?”  


“Probably nothing,” Ryan said.  


Dunne nodded yet again. “It does contradict their—” He paused as he directed his words at the girls. “Contradict your statement, but if the deal goes through, and I will, frankly, at this point, be shocked if it doesn’t, you won’t have to testify. The only way the deal is going to get thrown out is if some kind of new evidence arises and it’s clear that Jefferson isn’t being truthful.”  


Vanessa looked up at the girls. “Not testifying is good, right?”  


Chloe sighed loudly to keep from crying and noticed the FBI agent still nodding. “Man,” she said, turning to press her head against the wall, “I wish you’d quit fucking nodding.”  


Max rubbed Chloe’s back.  


“Listen,” Dunne said, standing and buttoning his coat. “I know in a way this probably isn’t the best news for you both. For what it’s worth, I one hundred percent believe everything you’ve told me and that includes Nathan overdosing Rachel. But Nathan is dead. We can’t arrest him. We can’t put him behind bars. This way a lot of people get answers a lot quicker, Jefferson goes away a lot sooner, and everyone is spared a very long trial.”  


Chloe stood there with Max rubbing her back while the agent briefly answered a few of Mr. and Mrs. Caulfield’s remaining questions. When he was out the door, Chloe waited long enough to ensure he was no longer in the driveway, then turned and spoke only to Max.  


Chloe grabbed both Max’s hands and said, “Give me a minute, okay?”  


She didn’t wait for a reply. She grabbed her jacket and left. She was careful not to storm out, not to slam the door, not to hit anything on the porch. But once outside she barreled down the long stairway to the elevated front yard, hopped down from the retaining wall onto the driveway, and kicked the trash can as tears came.  


The kick was harder than she meant for it to be. Only quick reflexes stopped the can from tipping. Nothing, however, could stop the shrill clang of metal that echoed through the neighborhood, setting several dogs to barking, and triggered a cascade of porchlights.  


"Fuck my life.” Chloe sighed, closed her eyes, and let her head droop backwards.  


The front door opened. Chloe knew it was Max without looking. The quick but careful footsteps down the long stairwell confirmed it. She waited for her to say something or to hear the sound of tennis shoes landing on the driveway but it never came.  


When Chloe opened her eyes, Max stood on the ledge of the retaining wall, debating whether to jump or walk across the yard and then go down the steps down onto the street.  


Chloe laughed with a mixture of exasperation and endearment. Max looked at her. “What?” She asked, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.  


Chloe crossed to the wall and held her arms out. “Christ, you’re cute.”  


“That’s why you love me,” Max said, hoping into her arms.  


_Maybe this is everything_ , Chloe thought, sitting Max down in front of her. _Being with someone who makes you laugh, who calls you on your shit, who urges you to do better, and picks up slack on those things you suck at?_  


“It’s true,” Chloe said softly. Then much louder, “Sorry about—”  


“S’okay,” Max said, straightening her sweatshirt. “Walk?”  


“Yeah.”  


The two of them set off down the sidewalk alone. Night had come but darkness was somewhere else, banished by the distant, watery city-glow of Seattle and the shimmer from the nearby porch lights. They walked together through the neighborhood in a kind of twilight, neither dark nor light.  


There were other people out. An older couple on their porch. A gaggle of teenagers in a driveway, all hovering around an old beater car. A young, fit couple power-walking with their dog. All of them seemed distant. Unreal. Strangely far away. Like they were being seen through something.  


Max took Chloe’s hand. Her fingers felt chilly. Her bones fragile. Instead of grounding her, it only increased Chloe’s sense of being somewhere far away, somewhere removed from everyone and everything else.  


Chloe wanted desperately to escape with Max, to not tell anyone and just leave. The thought of it seemed scary, but also strangely comforting and somehow important, like it was necessary. She tried to make sense of it and, as she plumbed into the depths of that feeling, it began to rain one of those light Seattle drizzles and suddenly everything seemed so intense that she was certain Max had to feel it to.  


She squeezed Max’s hand harder, promised herself then that she would never let Max get away for her ever again, never ever again. Never ever. She laughed to herself just a little and out of the corner of her eye she saw Max look at her and suddenly, before she knew what she was doing, she asked, “Do you regret it?”  


“Regret—”  


“Saving me.”  


Max stopped Chloe with a hand on her jacket. “What?”  


“Choosing me. Do you regret it?”  


“ _What?_ No—of course not.”  


Now Chloe began to cry freely. “ _I_ think about it sometimes. Like the people who died—I mean, it could have been a lot worse.” She closed her eyes as she continued. “When we were standing there that night…it was so dark…so fucking dark…the lighthouse at our back…the wind so unbelievably strong…and that massive whirlwind out at sea —Christ, I think that was one of the biggest anythings I’ve seen in real life—and it’s coming toward the Bay, I really thought it was going to be even worse than it was. Like Hurricane Katrina. Or something you see on the news that happens in a third-world country you can’t even find on the map. Or like the actual end of the whole fucking world.”  


Chloe opened her eyes. Max stared at her with love and concern, which only made her cry harder. “But the next day? Yeah, it was bad. But not as bad as we thought.”  


Max nodded because she didn’t know what else to do. She waited for Chloe to say something else. When she didn’t, the silence became immediately and intensely unbearable. And so Max spoke. Her voice came soft and distant, like a precious thing you thought you had lost and when you find it, it feels more fragile to you and you become all too aware of how easy everything is to lose. “It’s strange,” she said. “Once I took your hand, it seemed to get a little better, and when it made landfall a little better still.”  


“Right?” Chloe nodded strongly and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, the hand the held Max’s. “The town itself was fucked. Like the buildings or whatever. And you know, 50 people died. But Arcadia Bay is what? 5,000 people. That’s only 1%. That’s not a lot really. And I mean, over the last decade there have been like 7,000 natural disasters worldwide that have claimed something like 1.3 million lives—I goggled that. So 50 people isn’t even a data spike, but sometimes, fucking sometimes, I can’t stop thinking about those 50 people. About their lives and about everyone who loved them and about how they’re missed and what they may have done if they were still here. And sometimes I think maybe it would have been better if everyone died, like literally everyone, like we were being punished from on high. Because you can’t really comprehend everyone right? I mean, you don’t even really see faces when you think about ‘everyone.’ And that just makes me feel worse and so then I’m back to thinking about those 50 people. I mean, that’s like a fucking party we’ve all been to. 50 people. And then, Max…then I’m just overcome by this sense of…I don’t know…loss…and I feel like I’ve done something wrong. That there’s something wrong with the world. And that you fucked up.”  


Chloe squeezed Max’s hand hard and raised it her lips. She kissed the back of it and then spoke into her thin fingers. “You chose wrong. You should have chosen the bay. Because I’m not worth it.”  


“Chloe…”  


“And I don’t want to feel that way. I don’t and sometimes I can just let it the fuck go and other times, it hooks me like thorns, and I just end up searching my mind, trying to understand why me? Why do I get to live? Why did Max pick me?”  
“Chloe, I—”  


“Because I don’t understand. And I don’t know that I think I’m worth 50 people, Max. I don’t know.”  


Max took a long, ragged breath. “Chloe, you are my best friend. I love you. You’ve always been my best friend. And I’ve always loved you. I’m sorry I abandoned you—”  


“I know, Max, you’ve already apologized for that and you’ve proven—”  


“Let me finish.”  


Chloe nodded.  


“It wasn’t purposeful, okay? It wasn’t. We were moving away and your dad died. I didn’t know how to deal with any of those things. Any of them. I was just paralyzed. Chloe, you were my whole world before we moved. I honestly didn’t know how I could get by in a different town at a different school with different people and not see you every day. And I was just afraid of everything.”  


“Really?”  


“Yes.” Max pulled her hand back and grabbed Chloe’s with both of her own. Chloe stumbled a little, then sniffled and stepped closer.  


“Finding you again, even if it was in the fucking bathroom with Nathan fucking Prescott waving a gun, was the best thing that ever happened to me.”  


“That’s a lot of fucking,” Chloe said, forcing herself to laugh. “I’m a bad influence on you Max.”  


“The only thing I would change about anything that happened is I’d tried to help more people.”  


“Max—”  


“No, listen,” she said forcefully. “I’ve thought a lot about this too. It weighs on me sometimes. But if I learned one thing other than how much I fucking love you Chloe Elizabeth Price, it’s that you have to speak up for yourself, you have to go with what you feel is right, and just do the best you can. Nothing will ever come out perfect. But having you in my life is pretty damned close.”  


“Ah fuck, Max.” Chloe broke down sobbing. She collapsed into Max who held her up and held her tight. She relished that—how good it felt good to just let it go, to be vulnerable, to be human, to be okay with not being okay.  


When she got ahold of herself again, Chloe straightened up, rubbed her sleeve across her wet eyes, looked at Max and smiled. “I snotted on your sweatshirt.”  


“That’s okay,” Max replied. “I got mascara on your t-shirt.”  


They both laughed and walked back to the Caulfield house holding hands. When they reached the porch, Max noticed the manila envelope on the porch swing first.  


“What is that?”  


Chloe shook her head. “I don’t think it was there when we left.”  


Max looked at the bay window behind the swing. The front room was dark which meant her parents had gone to bed. Cautiously, she picked up the envelope and saw her name written across the front in neat block letters.  


“If that’s a love letter,” Chloe said. “I _will_ cut a bitch.”  


Max opened it and peaked inside. She could see the back of a 5 x 7” photograph. She looked at Chloe and gulped.  


Chloe reached out. “Max…”  


Max held her breath and the slid the photo free. Her fingers trembled as she turned it over— _it was a picture of her in the Dark Room._  


“Max how…?”  


“I…”  


“That’s not possible. That was another timeline, right? There shouldn’t a picture…”  


“I don’t know. Unless…”  


“Jefferson,” Chloe said, angrily looking out into the neighborhood where night had finally come, full and thick and dark.


	2. CONTRE-JOUR

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A warning from FBI Agent Dunne that someone is financing an expensive lawyer for Jefferson and a creepy photograph of Max in the Dark Room left on the Caulfields' porch, sends the girls to Grimwood State Penitentiary. An unsettling visit with Jefferson draws them back to Arcadia Bay for even more surprises...

##  CONTRE-JOUR 

Chloe woke from the nightmare to find herself in an empty bed. She sat up and looked quickly around the motel room. Their bags still sat on the table by the window and Max’s sweatshirt still hung off the old, boxy television set.

Chloe rubbed her eyes and called her girlfriend’s name. When there was no answer, she rose quickly and checked the bathroom. The few toiletries they brought were still on the sink and the shower was bone dry. _Hmmm…_

Back in the room, Chloe looked for a note. There wasn’t one so she turned to her phone. No texts from Max only a voicemail from her mother. 

Chloe choked back panic. Her eyes raced around the small motel room, looking for—what? Clues? A struggle? Magic? Time…butterflies? She didn’t know. 

Her eyes flitted to the door. She called out again, softer this time, “Max?” 

Silence. 

Chloe slid her phone into her back pocket, took a breath to steady herself, and opened the door. Outside the day crested over the trees, the mountains, and the office of the Morley Motor Lodge with a thousand bright daggers of light.

Morning blinded her.

“Fuck!” Chloe turned her head and blinked her sight back. Using her hand to shield her watery eyes, she squinted for Max. The parking lot was nearly empty. Other than her beat-up truck, there was only one other car and a semi she couldn’t believe was able to drive under the carport into the courtyard. 

Chloe took a step and lucked step into shade. She started around to the office and immediately spotted Max standing in the overgrown grass out front, snapping pictures of the beat-up neon sign and the sky brightening against the zigzag roof-shape. 

Chloe rushed forward. Fear threatened to turn to anger, concern to outrage. She felt the shift and caught herself before the new emotion took over. _No, don’t lash out._ She took a purposeful deep breath. Another and her muscles relaxed and her heartbeat slowed. 

Max didn’t notice her. She fanned an instant photo as she turned from the motor lodge to face the forest opposite, figuring composition with every tilt of her head. 

Chloe ran her hands through her hair and went back inside their room. She fished her hidden pack of smokes from the bottom of her Army surplus backpack, cracked the window, and sat down to smoke at the cheap table. 

The nicotine helped. She hated that it did because Max was right, it was an expensive and unhealthy habit. Nonetheless, after only a few drags she felt all her tension melt and she turned her mind to the future. 

_Maybe, we could compromise?_ She thought. _I’ll do the college thing with Max if she’ll agree to a long road trip before classes start…That could be awesome._

Chloe finished her cigarette daydreaming about the trip, where they’d go, who’d they see, and all the little adventures they’d have together. She smiled and stabbed her cigarette butt into the cheap disposable ashtray. Then she fanned the air, slammed the window shut, and went to brush her teeth. 

Chloe heard Max return as she was rinsing her spit out of the sink. “I got some amazing photos!” She called from the other room. “Sorry I didn’t leave a note, I figured I’d be back before you woke up!” 

Chloe entered fusing with her hair. “No worries,” she said, glancing quickly over Max’s photos, before kissing her on the temple. “I’m gonna go check out and then we need to hit the road.” 

Max nodded and went back to her photos. Chloe stood at the door for a quiet moment before heading to the office. She always liked seeing Max like this. Absorbed in her art. It’s when all the armor and masks and practiced behaviors we all wear fell away and revealed our genuine and authentic selves. 

Chloe pushed the office door open hard but not hard enough. She had envisioned the door swinging open and her strutting in before it closed. But the door was heavier than she thought and the spring arm geared much too tight, so it swung only halfway before swinging back hard to slam into her palms. 

She winced and slipped into the office, shooting the manager a hey-how’s-it-going-yeah-I-totally-meant-to-do-that look. 

The manager smirked and said, “Morning, Bonnie.” 

_Bonnie?_ It took her a few seconds to remember, so she knew her initial confusion was obvious. For some reason when they had checked, she had signed the guest book as Bonnie Darko. 

“Uh, yeah, morning!” She said awkwardly. “Bonnie sure is a morning gal! That’s me—Bonnie! Bonnie Darko!” 

She laughed even more awkwardly and sat her wallet on the front counter. The manager understood. He slid the guest book around for her to sign and rattled off the total. Chloe signed quickly, then thumbed twenties onto the counter, her heart sinking at every Jackson. 

While the managed cashed out her change, Chloe asked, “Can I talk through some directions with you?” 

“Sure, hon,” he said. 

Chloe groaned inside—she hated to be called hon, babe, darling, or sweetie by people she didn’t know. “To get to Grimwood Penitentiary, I’ll need to—”

The manager immediately interrupted her and mansplained how to leave the Motor Lodge and arrive at the prison. 

The two girls didn’t make it far down the road before Max’s growling stomach lead them into a roadside dinner. A local slop shop with a weird teepee roof, at least it was cheap. 

Chloe and Max ate in mostly silence. Chloe couldn’t shake the nightmare. Max was just desperately hungrily and, as always, desperately concerned about speaking with her mouth full. 

Finally out of nowhere, Chloe said, “Hey, do you remember our tree fort?” 

Max covered her mouth with the back of her hand. She chewed thoughtfully and ran her tongue over her white teeth before answering. “You mean Pirate Fortress?” She leaned across the table to catch Chloe’s eyes. “How could I forget? So much fun. And so much trouble.” 

Chloe nodded. “Do you ever remember anything weird happening there?” 

“Weird? You mean like when we saw Bigfoot weird?” Max shook her head, waffling in her phrasing. “Okay…when we thought we saw Bigfoot.” 

Chloe’s eyes lit up. “That really did happen?” 

“Yeah, well, I mean…was it really Bigfoot? I don’t know.” Max shrugged. “A year ago? I would have said no way. Now…?”

Chloe chewed her lip. “Yeah, now…”

“You’re so random.” Max smiled, then quickly added, “Why do you ask?” 

“I had a dream.” 

“About Bigfoot?” Max looked around the diner conspiratorially, before whispering, “It wasn’t that kind of dream was it? Because I like shaving my legs.” 

Chloe laughed in spite of herself. “It was actually kind of scary. I had forgotten that had ever happened until the dream and I was trying to remember if it did happen or if it was, you know, just something my mind—”

“Is that what’s been bothering you? Because you’ve seemed upset about something all morning.” 

Max’s words struck her like a bucket of cold water to the face. Chloe had thought she had been hiding everything she was feeling. Now, she knew Max had seen through it all. That realization was both comforting and disturbing. It made her heart sing to see how well and how deeply Max knew her—in her rational adulting moments she had come to believe that being seen by someone else was all anyone wanted—but it was also frightening to be so vulnerable and so raw with another person. 

Chloe started to speak, but stopped before even a sound left her lips. _Isn’t this what you always wanted?_ She thought, staring into the depths of Max’s eyes. _Someone creative with patience and kindness and thoughtfulness galore who knew you as you were truly? Then why are you so afraid, right now?_

Max smiled gently. “Do you wanna talk about it? Talking about it often helps.” 

_Come on, Price…_ “Yeah, I mean, I don’t know…The dream was just like jumble of memories about the tree fort—”

“Pirate Fortress,” Max corrected again before sipping on her orange juice. 

“Okay—Pirate Fortress.” Chloe rolled her eyes at Max and playfully kicked her under the table. The two of them held each other’s gaze for a moment. Neither was yet quite comfortable with open displays of affection. Chloe smiled awkwardly and secretly rested her foot on top of Max’s as she continued, “A bunch of memories, I think. Finding the spot that day my parents took us camping. Discovering how easy it was to hide there. Building it up. Sneaking away from the beach to work on it. All that.” 

Max smiled. “You could talk me into anything.” 

“Almost anything,” Chloe said, cherishing both the memories and the melody of Max’s voice. “But in the dream, everything was taken over by the Bigfoot thing. It was like, I was watching it happen, like for real, you know. But like outside of myself. Like an omniscient narrator, you know?” 

Max nodded, her food forgotten. 

“Then it was…” Chloe struggled to articulate the image she had seen in her mind. “Like surreal. Like a surreal painting. Like nightmarish and arty. And we’re hiding in the tree fort— _pirate fortress_ —and the thing is out there and it feels big, like huge, and very…like it means us harm—”

“Malevolent.” 

“Yes, very malevolent.” When Chloe said the word, it seemed to unlock something else, something deeper, an understanding she didn’t think she could explain meaningfully. “It didn’t feel—didn’t look like Bigfoot though. It was more like a primal…wild…man-like, I guess. Almost sort of like that—what’s the image that shows up on really old churches…the Green Man. Or the goat guy.” 

“Pan?” 

“Yeah…kinda…maybe.” 

“Could mean a lot of things,” Max said. “We’re on our way to see Jefferson. That’s scary. We’re going to see him in a prison. That’s super scary. We’re heading back to Arcadia Bay. That’s make your stomach hurt scary. Not to mention Arcadia was Pan’s home in Greek myth.” 

Chloe nodded at the end of each of Max’s sentences, taking it all in and internalizing it. Her clear logic. Her calm and even voice. _God, Max, you don’t know how much I missed you like this._

“So, all that getting jumbled in your head and coming out as a childhood—when we’re at our most vulnerable—nightmare makes sense really.” 

“Yeah, it does.” 

“And ultimately, it’s just a dream.” 

“The mind processing info,” Chloe said. 

Max squeezed her hand and rubbed the back of it with her thumb. “Exactly.” 

Chloe looked down at her plate. Cautiously, she looked up through her eyelashes and saw Max watching her. Their eyes met and it was one of _those_ moments. One of those moments where you know a connection can be made, something special with someone else... “What if it’s not though?” 

“Not sure I understand. Like it’s a…recovered memory.” 

Chloe looked down at her plate again. She picked up her fork with her other hand and excavated the ruins of her French toast. “No, not that,” she said. “But not just a dream.” 

Max took the fork out of Chloe’s right hand and grasped it as well. “Chloe. Just tell me.” 

“I’m going to tell you something that I haven’t told anyone else—ever.” 

Max released her. She scooted to the edge of the booth with her tummy pressed against the Formica top and rested her chin on her hands. She looked intently at her girlfriend and nodded. 

“I used to dream about my dad,” she said. “A lot. A whole lot.” 

“Chloe, death—” Flooded with the memories of how many times she had watched her blue-haired soulmate die and how many times she’d seen Kate fall from that fucking Blackwell roof, Max’s words caught in her throat. She swallowed and adjusted her diction cautiously, “I’ve never experienced death…in the same way you have. But I think that seems pretty normal.” 

“It wasn’t just dreams though—like replaying happy memories because I hadn’t really accepted my dad being dead. It was like he was there talking to me about what was happening in my life. Giving me advice.” 

Max considered a moment before speaking. “Maybe that was just the form your subconscious was taking?” 

“Sometimes though it was almost like he was…warning me.” Chloe considered her next words carefully as it was something she had talked little about and the subject seemed to make Max’s a little touchy. “There were so many crazy things Rachel and I went through that he…”

“I understand,” Max said, cutting her off. “Do you still have these dreams?” 

Chloe shook her head. “Not since the storm,” she said. 

“But the Bigfoot dream…felt kind of like that?” 

“Yeah, kind of like, I was being…warned again.” 

“Maybe you could try…” Max searched for the words. “Try forcing yourself to have one of the dreams. You know like the whole lucid dreaming thing. Go to bed and think about making contact with your…”

“My dad?” 

“Whatever it is that’s speaking to you.” 

Chloe looked out the grimy dinner window. A crow gobbled half a dirty French fry in the parking lot. Its beak opened and closed, opened and closed until the fried potato slid down its gullet. 

“I hadn’t thought about that,” Chloe said. 

The crow flew to the nearest trashcan. It perched on the dented room, looked at them both, and cawed.

Once they made it through the security check-point at the front gate and found a parking spot somewhere in the back, it finally sank in. Chloe let the engine roughly idle while she stared at the tall fence topped with razor-wire and the ominous line of guard towers. “Did this just get super intense for you?” 

Max placed her hand on Chloe’s. “Yeah.” 

“Do you want to just get out of here?” 

“Yeah,” Max said. “But we need to go in.” 

Chloe shut off the engine. “Yeah,” she said. “We do.” 

The guard at the visitor’s desk was an imposing man with a strangely high-pitched voice. When he explained that in order to see an inmate, you can had to be on their visitor’s list, Chloe and Max thought that would be it.

“Who’re you here to see?” 

“Jefferson…uh, Mark Jefferson.” 

The guard arched a big bushy eyebrow. “You girls—you know what? None of my business. Let me check.” 

The guard turned his attention to the computer screen, his big fingers dancing quickly over the keys. "You're on the list..."

When their names were called an hour later, the guard stamped their right hands with glow in the dark ink, then directed the two girls through a metal detector. Max went through first soundlessly. Chloe stepped through to a loud beep. 

A stern-faced female guard immediately directed Chloe to step aside, while Max was instructed to remove her shoes and then place them into a plastic bin so they could be scanned. 

“Arms up,” the guard told Chloe. 

Chloe obeyed and the guard quickly swept her body with a hand-held metal detector, careful not to actually touch her. The detector chirped at her waist. 

“Belt buckle,” Chloe explained. 

The guard stepped back. “Show me.” 

Chloe raised her t-shirt just enough to reveal a large metal buckle in the shape of flames. The guard nodded to signal she was okay, then directed her to follow Max’s lead. 

The two girls put on their shoes, then the female guard patted them down one at time, asking if they had any weapons concealed on their persons. “My wit,” Chloe said, “is razor sharp. So don’t say I didn’t warn you.” 

“Now is not the time for humor.” 

“Sorry.” 

“Step over there. And wait by the gate.” 

Through the bars, the girls could see a kind of antechamber with a guard room and another barred gate that lead to a large visitor’s area.

The guard buzzed them through. As soon as the gate slammed closed behind them, they were directed to place their hands under a UV light to reveal the invisible ink stamp. When satisfied, the antechamber guard buzzed them through the second gate. 

The visitors’ room was large and open, filled with tables and chairs packed with prisoners and family. One corner of the room was dominated by a long row of vending machines selling bad coffee, soda pop, and lots of sugary sweets. Guards were stationed strategically around the room, while a mustached guard who reminded Chloe of David patrolled the tables. 

A younger guard whose biceps looked ready to burst the tight sleeves of his uniform, ushered Max and Chloe into the protective custody room, a smaller separate visitors’ room right next to the prisoner entrance. 

“Holy fuck, Max,” Chloe said. “This shit is crazy.” 

The girls waited in silence, trying not to let their nervous get the best of them, until thankfully from somewhere inside the prison, a deep male voice yelled, “Inmate on the move.” 

The girls looked up and spotted Jefferson being lead down a barred hall toward the visiting area. He was clad in an ill-fitting orange jumpsuit with a number stenciled above his left breast pocket. His hands and feet were cuffed and connected to a chain around his stomach. His hair and beard were shaggy. His designer frames had been replaced by a cheap pair of state-issued glasses. 

He saw the two of them waiting in the protective custody room and smiled. 

Chloe leaned in close to Max. “I can’t tell you how gross I feel having thought he was good-looking,” she whispered. 

“You don’t have to tell me,” Max said, watching her former teacher and tormentor wait for the gate to open. “I feel the same way.” 

The same muscular guard who had shown them in, escorted Jefferson over to the table.

“Visitors,” the guard said. “You will remain seated at all times unless you are coming over to speak with me or you have been directed to stand. You will not pass anything to the inmate. And you will not accept anything from the inmate. Do you understand?” 

The girls did. 

Turning to Jefferson, the guard’s tone grew more harsh. “Inmate, you will follow my orders. You will remain seated at all times. You will not pass anything to your visitors. You will not accept anything passed from your visitors. Do you understand?” 

“I certainly do, Officer— ” 

The guard placed his hands on Jefferson’s shoulder and pushed him down into the seat across from Max and Chloe. They watched as he fastened Jefferson’s shackles to the table. “If you need anything, you call for me immediately,” he said before resuming his post by the door.

“Max,” Jefferson said as soon as they were alone 

Hearing him speak her name and seeing the obvious creeper in his smile, Max couldn’t help but shudder with revulsion. 

Jefferson smirked. “And…Chloe? Is it?” 

“Chloe it is shit-heel.” 

“To what do I owe the honor of this visit?” 

“Agent Dunne told us about your deal.” 

“I’m not surprised,” Jefferson said. “Your…sleuthing is why I’m here after all.” 

Max continued to stare at Jefferson. Chloe could feel the torrent of emotions raging inside of her. She reached over and stroked Max’s back. 

Jefferson immediately noticed the intimacy. He caught Chloe’s eye and smiled slyly. Chloe removed her hand, not wanting Jefferson to containment the purity of the gesture with his dark lasciviousness. 

“I know,” he said, looking at Chloe, “your stepfather tried to take the bulk of the credit for solving the mystery himself, but tell me truthfully – it was all you two wasn’t it?” 

Max opened her mouth to speak but, ever the pedagogue, Jefferson silenced her with a finger. “Now, neither of you have to tell me how. I just want to know I’m correct. It was you, wasn’t it?” 

Chloe choked back her own rage, waiting to give Max both the space and the chance to take the lead. Max felt Chloe’s gift instinctually. Overcome, she suddenly sat up very straight. “It was us, you motherfucker,” she said. “We’re why your sorry psychopathic, misogynist ass will never see the light of day.” She rose slightly and slammed both her palms on the table. The guard across the room stiffened, ready to act if the situation escalated. 

Max lowered her voice but kept the same intensity. “Us. Two girls. Just like the girls you spent your life hurting. I hope you rot in that mental institution, strapped to a piss-reeking bed, listening to people scream all night long.” 

_Go, Super Max!_ Chloe cheered to herself while Max eased back into her seat, her deep exhale carrying over the room. 

Jefferson’s face was expressionless. Completely removed of anything. Even his eyes were empty, clearly vacant of some essential humanness. 

“It all makes sense now,” he said, finally. “I’ve spent so much time here trying to riddle it out. The sudden change I saw in you Max. The confidence. The strength. The… conviction that seemed to arise out of nowhere and fill you. I’ve tried to understand what force was it that lead us to collide like two contradictory weather fronts to produce a terrible storm, a storm that wrecked me here…”

Max shook her head. “You. Are. So. Pretentious.” 

Chloe smirked. 

Jefferson continued. “I get it now though. I see it. Clearly.” He leaned over the table as far as his chains would allow. “It’s her. Isn’t it. You don’t have to say. I know it. I can feel it. I can’t believe I didn’t know it the first time I saw the two of you together.” 

Jefferson turned to Chloe. 

Jefferson sniffled, then awkwardly adjusted his glasses before straightening up. “I have to be honest with you, Max,” he said. “If I had known a piece of dirty pussy would have that sort of effect on you, I would have pushed you toward one of the many lesbians at Blackwell a long time ago. Most of them wanted to fuck you.” 

Chloe burst out of her chair and feinted a punch at Jefferson. Jefferson flinched and Chloe laughed. 

The guard, however, did not. He crossed the room immediately and positioned himself between the two of them. “Remain seated inmate.” 

Jefferson nodded. 

“You will step over there, Miss,” he said, pointing at Chloe. 

“Fine,” she said, walking away from Jefferson and Max. 

“The only reason I’m not making you leave right now is because…” The guard paused to lean in close. “That man is a piece of shit and I’ve wanted to hit him myself.” 

Chloe chuckled. 

“But you need to understand, if you had actually followed through…and that had connected? Then you would be in hot water, young lady.” 

“Yessir.” 

“I’m gonna give your friend five more minutes. You will wait here with me.” 

Chloe nodded and leaned up against the bars beside the guard. 

Back at the table, Jefferson smiled and leaned back in his chair, pleased with himself. “There something else you want Max?” 

“Scott Prescott is paying for your lawyer, isn’t he?” 

Jefferson shrugged. “Is he?” 

“Did you send me that picture?” 

“What picture?” 

“A picture of me.” 

“Why would I send you, a picture, of you?” Jefferson shrugged again. “Besides, they wouldn’t let me have pictures of…young girls in here.” 

Max’s stomach churned. “Someone left a picture of me on my parents’ front porch.” 

“I told you, Max—”

“It was a picture…of me…in the…in The Dark Room.” 

Something glinted in Jefferson’s eyes. For Max, watching it happen was like knocking on a house that seemed to be empty only to realize someone was home and you were suddenly afraid of _who_ would answer the door. 

“Now, that’s far more interesting to me. A picture of you in The Dark Room. But—” Jefferson awkwardly removed his glasses and cleaned them on his jumpsuit. “—you were never in The Dark Room, were you?” 

Max looked into his eyes. “N-n-n-o,” she said. 

“Then why do you care?” 

“It’s upsetting.” 

“That’s the problem with your generation, Max. You think you can go through life and never be upset. But that’s impossible. Lots of things are upsetting, Max. Lots of things. You’ll see this as you get older, as you move further away from innocence.”

Max licked her lips. “I know, but—”

“But what?” 

Max bit her lip frustrated. A part of her considering reach out and rewinding time, playing through this whole conversation again. 

“Guard,” Jefferson said. “I’m done here.” 

“No wait,” Max said, but the guard was already walking over, gesturing for Chloe to stay there, while Jefferson rattled his wrist chain against the table-bolt incessantly. 

“Who’s helping you? Who sent me that picture? Is it…real?” 

Jefferson didn’t answer. He continued jerking the chain against the bolt as he called for the guard. 

Max extended her fingers. 

The guard was telling her to stand back and go wait with her friend. 

“Tell me,” Max said, raising her hand. 

Jefferson watched her and something in his look told Max that he was seeing into her soul and he was cataloguing her weaknesses. Angrily Max reached out with her mind and begin to wrench at reality—

“Max!” 

Chloe’s voice brought her back. Max closed her fingers, clenched them into a tight first as she stood back from the table. 

The guard radioed to someone, then unlocked Jefferson from the table. “You will step away from the table inmate.” 

Jefferson nodded as he backed away. 

“If you’re looking for answers, Max, perhaps you should go back to the beginning.” 

“The beginning?” 

“Arcadia Bay,” Jefferson said. “It’s where I grew up.” 

”Arcadia Bay but why—”

“No time for that. Now you fly away little butterfly. Fly. Fly…”

Whether it was genuine or an attempt to fake-it-until-you-make-it, the girls were surprisingly upbeat on the drive back to Arcadia Bay. They chatted and joked and reminisced, their laughter coaxing memories both had forgotten. They teased each other. They held hands across the front seat. They blasted the radio and not just punk. After she heard the opening strains of Morphine’s “You Look Like Rain,” Max convinced Chloe to leave it on alternative station for more than one song

Everything changed once the old pickup chugged around the bend and onto the straightaway leading into town proper. The Arcadia Bay sign had been roughly painted over with a thick coat of white paint. A billboard loomed ominously behind the sign.

“Fuck me, sideways.” Chloe eased over to the side of the road. Max was out immediately, her Chuck Taylored feet crunching across the gravel before the beat-up pickup came to a full stop.

The massive billboard depicted an entirely new and thoroughly-modern town—a designer, smart town—where Arcadia Bay once stood. Chloe’s stomach churned at the artist’s rendition, the big bold leaders announcing _Plots Available soon!_ and the fine print alerting the plebs that a credit check would be required. 

“Prescott Bay?” Max shook her head. 

“I bet you won’t even be able to visit unless you make at least $100K,” Chloe said. “Motherfuckers.”

“Motherfuckers is right,” Max said. “Sean Motherfucking Prescott.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next episode: Chloe and Max get a surprise at the Madsen household, Chloe comes out, Chloe and Max reach a new level of intimacy, a nighttime vision of William sends Chloe toward a dangerous confrontation...


	3. MY FATHER'S HOUSE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chloe and Max receive a shocking surprise at the Madsen household, Chloe comes out, Chloe and Max reach a new level of intimacy, and a vision of William sends Chloe toward a nighttime confrontation...

## My Father's House

Seeing 44 Cedar Avenue, the first words out of Chloe Price’s mouth were, “What the hell is this?” 

Max had been staring out the passenger window, lost in thought. Chloe’s outburst broke the hold of her dark thoughts. She immediately spotted the large moving truck parked beside Joyce and David’s cars. “Chloe…” 

“What. The. Fuck.” Chloe ground the gears. “What the fucking fuck is this?” She hammered the pedal down, blew through the stop sign, roared down the street, and squealed into the driveway.

“Chloe—” Max called her name again but she was out of the truck almost as soon as she turned the key to kill the engine. 

Joyce came rushing out of the moving truck, demanding to know who—“Oh, Chloe—”

“Mom? What’s going on?” 

“Chloe, we—Max—”

Chloe gestured at the moving truck with a _WTF_ hand wave. So frustrated that she couldn’t speak, she rounded the rear of the truck and thrust both arms at the huge stack of boxes. “You’re moving? You’re fucking moving and you didn’t tell me?!?! That’s seriously fucked up!” 

”Really, Chloe?” Joyce cocked her head disappointingly. “You never answer your—”

“Were you even gonna tell me?”

“Sweetie, of course. I’ve tried to call you. David has tried to call you.” 

“You never listened to that message…” Max offered as she came up beside her girlfriend, gently touching her arm.

Chloe spun sharply, ready to bite her head off, saw Max’s ever compassionate face and felt her rage cool.

At that exact moment, David came out through the garage. “Oh—hey, there, stranger.”

Chloe looked at her stepfather and burst into tears. She pushed past him into the house. Her heart ached seeing the empty living room with the dirty walls. She started up the stairs, saw another stack of boxes waiting at the top, and fled through the back door.

The storm had damaged the roof badly in places, shattered several of the windows, and ripped off siding and pieces of fence, but somehow the rusty swing-set made it through. She turned now to this, that way she always had, for comfort and safety. A kind of timeless reminder of childhood when everything was safe and happy and the future seemed perfect, none of the rooms anywhere dark—only bright, always bright.

Well acquainted with her moods and her temper, the three of them gathered in the kitchen to give Chloe some time to herself. While Chloe sorted through her feelings, Max caught the Madsens up on the events of the last two months. She hesitated in telling them about Agent Dunne’s news, but decided that portion of the truth might serve to hide their visit to Grimwood and the real reason for returning to Arcadia Bay.

Joyce sighed. “At least he won’t be able to hurt anyone else and all those poor families will have some answers—” 

Muttering something about how that monster needed a bullet in the brain, David pushed off the counter and walked outside. 

Chloe looked up when the grimy glass door slid open. She watched David pause in the doorway, fuss with his burred hair and then start toward her. 

“You don’t have to apologize,” she said, as soon as he was close. “I know you’ve both called me and texted me. I’m terrible about returning messages. Max gives me hell for it.” 

“That’s good,” David said, leaning up the rusty swing frame. “Because I wasn’t going to apologize.” 

Chloe chuckled. “Smart ass,” she said, then smiled at her step-father. 

“Learned from the best,” he said, reaching out and patting her on the shoulder. 

”True that,” she said. “Where you moving?”

“Portland,” David said. 

“What’s in Portland?” 

“Couple of things,” David said. “A buddy of mine has started a private investigation firm. He’s offered me a job.” 

“You a PI? I could see that. You’ve got the Magnum, P.I. mustache. What about mom?” 

“She’s going back to school. Finally.” 

Chloe nodded her head appreciatively. “Wow.” _School. It’s always school…no, I’m happy for Mom._

“Wow’s right,” David said. “But there’s something else.” 

“There’s more?”

“Yeah…”

“Before you hit me with something else,” Chloe said. “There’s something I want to tell you.” 

David took a breath and then nodded. 

“So…” Chloe’s breath caught in her chest as her heart began to hammer a loud incessant rhythm in her narrow chest. “I…uh…”

David shuffled awkwardly on his feet. “Come on, Chloe,” he said. “I had kinda hoped we were beyond this.” 

She nodded and looked down at her boots. “So—Max and I are a couple.” 

David thought about it for a moment, then quickly asked, “Like a romantic couple?” 

“Yeah,” Chloe said, trying to brace herself for the worst possible response. 

David looked down at his hands. He started picking at a callous on his left palm. “Have you told Joyce?” 

“No.” Chloe couldn’t help but laugh. “Thought I’d start with you.”

“Why did you tell me first?” 

”You came out here first…?” Chloe stood suddenly. She hugged herself and took a few steps away from the swings. She looked out over what remained of Arcadia Bay and said, “Mostly, I guess because I was worried that you wouldn’t—”

“Approve?” 

Chloe shrugged, but kept her back turned to David. 

“So you think I’m a homophobe?” Her stepfather asked. 

Chloe shrugged again. “You lo—”

“Jesus Christ, Chloe! So I look like a homophone?” 

“Well, yeah, kinda—”

David laughed. “Yeah,” he said, “I guess my look doesn’t scream open-minded and progressive.” 

“Right?” 

“Chloe,” David said, coming up behind her and placing his hands on her shoulders. “I don’t care who you date as long as they treat you well. And I don’t know that anyone is going to treat you better than Max.” 

“Yeah.” Chloe nodded, then turned and looked at David. “That’s true,” she said wiping her eyes. “No one is certainly going to treat me better than Max.”

“No one else is certainly going to put up with your bullshit.” 

“That’s the fucking truth.” 

“So the other thing—”

“David, can’t we—”

”No, it can’t wait,” David said. “Your mother and I want to give you some money.” 

Chloe laughed. “Money? You don’t have any money.” 

“That’s not true.” David licked his lips nervously then smoothed out his mustache. “There was a bit of money that had been put away for your college. You’re an adult, you should say over what happens to that money now.” 

“How—”

“Also, we want to give you some of the money from the house. It’ll help with whatever you want to do and give you a leg up.”p>

_Damn_ , Chloe thought. _Growing up today_. “But I can still come and visit and stuff right?” 

“Naturally,” David said. “But there’s something else first.”

Chloe took a ragged breath to keep from getting weepier. “Okay.” 

David dug his hands into his pocket. “I want you to have this,” he said, offering her the keys to his muscle car. 

_Woh!_ “For real?” 

“For real,” David said. “The pickup of yours is unsafe and it’s gonna die any day now. Honestly, I think I like rebuilding those things more than I like driving them.” He swallowed. “Just please take it. I wanted it to be more…special but you wouldn’t ever answer your phone so we didn’t know—”

Chloe took the keys. “No,” she said, “it’s plenty special.” 

David sighed with relief, then shoved both hands into his pockets. “Okay, good, well, we should go inside and see Joy—”

“Yeah,” Chloe said, staring at the keys. She closed them in her fist and looked at David’s face. She saw him then, really saw him then, she thought for perhaps the first time—saw how desperate and fragile he was under that abrasive and off-putting exterior. She didn’t know if it was his experiences in the war or whatever he had been taught about what it meant to be a man, but she understood then the human part of it—that pain and fear and worry and loneliness we all cling to inside out own minds. 

Chloe slipped the keys in her pocket. David nodded and started forward only to be stopped by her words. “Something else though…”

“Yeah,” he said, turning. 

“Can I have a hug?” 

“What?” 

Chloe didn’t speak. She opened her arms and looked David in the eyes. Tears started to fall down his cheek. She closed her own eyes to keep from crying herself but opened her arms wider. 

When he hugged her, he said, very softly, “I love you. I don’t know if I know how to show it right, I really don’t, but I do really love you and I’m glad you’re my stepdaughter.” 

“I know,” she said. “I don’t know if I know how to be loved but I love you too.” 

David squeezed her harder and sniffled. 

_Growing up today_ , Chloe thought. _Growing up today._

At the end of the day, Chloe held Max’s hand as they looked at what had once been her personal space. The upstairs room had been cleared out even of boxes. The walls had been painted over with what smelled like multiple coats of white paint. The only two things remaining was a beat-up floor lamp and an old air mattress David had given them. 

“What a hella weird day,” Chloe said. 

“You can say that again.” Max brushed her hair back and held it away from her face. “Hey, about that money—” 

“Oh yeah, isn’t that crazy? I mean, it’s not like it’s a fortune but it’s a lot of money. Don’t feel bad about being a kept woman though, I mean—” 

Max chuckled but interrupted, “No, that’s not it. It’s Prescott money.” 

Chloe swallowed. “I hadn’t even thought of that.” 

Max nodded. “You should still take it.” 

Chloe started to speak but stopped herself to let Max finish. 

“Chloe,” she said, “this town is dead.” 

“And we killed it—” 

“Yeah, but it was dying anyway I think. I see that now, so maybe in a way it was a mercy killing. Maybe that’s just me trying to make myself feel better,” Max said, “but I also feel like, I don’t know if this makes sense, that Sean Prescott should pay. That he should pay everyone. Maybe now, people can move on and escape this slow death under his greed.” 

_Woh, my girl is hella smart._ Chloe nodded as she sat down on the edge of the air matress. She looked up as Max pulled off her sweatshirt. Max folded it neatly only to realize there was no place to put it. She started to toss it on the floor, but couldn’t bring herself to actually do it. Instead, she sat it neatly by the mattress. 

Max used the wall as support to pull her shoes off with her toes, then knelt beside the mattress and unzipped her bag. Even with the window open, the upstairs rooms felt humid and still reeked of paint fumes, so she chose a pair of shorts and a t-shirt which she arranged on the mattress. 

She rose and began pulling her t-shirt over her head. Max froze, realizing finally that Chloe was just watching her. Her cheeks flushed with mild embarrassment and she asked, “What?” 

Chloe hadn’t realized she had been staring until Max said something. She searched for the words to explain what she had been feeling. How everything had been perfectly normal—well as normal as anything could be after a day like that—and then she looked over right as Max removed her sweatshirt, something she had seen her do a million times, but there was something about _this time_ that made it different. 

Much like earlier, it was like she was truly seeing Max as a complete person with strengths and weaknesses and victories and failures and desire and fears. Seeing that but also seeing her in a way that no one could ever see themselves—objectively and honestly. She was overcome then by here is this person who is creative and kind and thoughtful and who listens and who is just amazing and they’ve chosen to be here and share themselves with me. And she felt so smitten and loving and aroused all at the same time. 

“Chloe? You’re still staring.” 

Chloe still didn’t speak. Embarrassed Max turned her back to remove her shirt and jeans. She reached down to grab her shorts and as she did, Chloe crossed to her quickly and grabbed her wrist. 

“Chloe?” 

Chloe didn’t speak, merely urged her to turn into her. When she did, Max’s face was a mixture of nervousness and confusion but her eyes were expectant and strangely hopeful. Chloe stepped close and looked down at her girlfriend who looked away. “Chloe,” she said her name again softly, clearly overcome with her own sense of embarrassment and shame. 

Max stepped back and reached down for her clothes but Chloe followed and kissed her once, quickly. 

“W-w-what?” 

Chloe kissed her again. Still quickly but harder this time. 

Max laughed nervously, then licked her lips suddenly aware of how dry they felt, how dry her mouth felt—like it was being pulled into itself. “What are you—?”

Chloe kissed her again, harder and deeper. 

“You’re being silly.” 

Chloe shrugged and kissed again. Unconsciously Max had fallen into her rhythm of kiss and head movement, kiss and pause. She started to speak, but Chloe cut her off with another kiss and this one she held. This one was deep and hard and wet. 

When Chloe finally pulled away, Max exhaled. “I—What b-b-brought this—”

Chloe kissed her again. “You.” 

Max spoke into her Chloe’s lips. “I didn’t do anything.” 

Chloe stayed close and grinned. “You don’t have to,” she said, then kissed her again. 

Now Max melted into her. Met her kiss back. Met her press with the press of her own body. Met her hands with her own hands. This matching excited Chloe more and not just physically, but emotionally, mentally even, because it was like another Max, a Max no one had seen was coming forward, pushing free of her shell, rising, rushing, hurrying to meet her and only her. 

When Chloe touched Max between her legs, pushing her hand down the front of her jeand, she knew she felt the same way—

“Wait!” 

“Are you—”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Max said, breathlessly. “Just get the light.” 

“Can we leave it? I want to see you.” 

Chloe regretted saying it almost as soon as the words left her lips. She could see the war going on behind Max’s eyes. “You’ve seen me naked.” 

“Not like this. Not with the lights on.” 

“Chloe, I-I-I don’t have a lot of experience—”

“I don’t give a shit about experience, Caulfield,” Chloe said. “Fuck experience. I give a shit about you and I want to see you and I want you to see me.” 

Max breathed deep through pursed lips. She ran her hands through her hair and pressed herself against the wall. “Okay,” she said. “But if I ask again—”

“We’ll turn it off,” Chloe said. “I promise.”

When Chloe woke up everything was dark. She had the deep sense in her gut that there was someone else in the room. She reached out quickly but gently to make sure Max was still there. 

Her middle finger brushed Max’s thin wrist and something moved in the darkness surrounding the air mattress. 

_You got this, girl._ Chloe sat up carefully in bed so as not to wake Max. She moved slowly, chasing moonlight until her eyes adjusted—crows. Holy shit, there are crows here. All around the room. 

“Chloe,” a familiar voice said. 

“D-dad?” Instinctively, Chloe made sure Max was covered with the sheet. 

William knelt beside the mattress. “Yeah, it’s me, dad,” he said, leaning forward to whisper to Chloe. In the dim moonlight, his face looked more skeletal than human but for some reason it wasn’t frightening. 

“What’s going on…dad?” 

“Listen to me,” William said. “Someone’s here.” 

“Yeah, Max is here—”

“No, not her. I know Max.”

“Who’s here? It’s probably just David—he has night terrors.” 

“No,” William said, shaking his head. “Someone is here. Someone is in the house.” 

“From downstairs, Chloe heard the sound of glass breaking. 

“You need to wake up,” William said. “You need to wake up now.” 

“Dad?” 

“This is your chance, Chloe.” 

“My chance?” 

“You couldn’t save me. You couldn’t save Rachel. You couldn’t save this town. But maybe you can save Max.” 

“Save Max?” Chloe reached out to touch her father’s face and when she did she felt not flesh but bone. She saw raw, bleached white skull. 

“Save Max,” William’s skull said and Chloe screamed and as soon as she screamed he was gone, her hand grasped only shadows, and then the crows were swooping over the bed, rushing at her face… 

Chloe bolted upright out of the dream. She felt Max beside her, heard her breathing softly. She wiped sweat from her brow and started to relax because the room looked normal but there it was—the sound of breaking glass. 

_Someone is in the house._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Chloe faces a dangerous intruder; the Madsens leave for Portland; Max cuts her hair; Kristine Prescott tries to convince the girls to leave and never come back; a former Blackwell Student becomes their unlikely ally...


End file.
